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(From Pharsalia)
Translated by Nicholas Rowe
O ROME! if slaughter be thy only care, | |
| If such thy fond desire of impious war, | |
| Turn from thyself, at least, the destined wound, | |
| Till thou art mistress of the world around, | |
| And none to conquer but thyself be found. | 5 |
| Thy foes as yet a juster war afford, | |
| And barbarous blood remains to glut thy sword. | |
| But see! her hands on her own vitals seize, | |
| And no destruction but her own can please. | |
| Behold her fields unknowing of the plough! | 10 |
| Behold her palaces and towers laid low! | |
| See where o’erthrown the massy column lies, | |
| While weeds obscene above the cornish rise. | |
| Here, gaping wide, half-ruined walls remain; | |
| There mouldering pillars nodding roots sustain. | 15 |
| The landskip once in various beauty spread, | |
| With yellow harvests and the flowery mead, | |
| Displays a wild, uncultivated face, | |
| Which bushy brakes and brambles vile disgrace: | |
| No human footstep prints the untrodden green, | 20 |
| No cheerful maid nor villager is seen. | |
| Even in her cities famous once and great, | |
| Where thousands crowded in the noisy street, | |
| No sound is heard of human voices now, | |
| But whistling winds through empty dwellings blow; | 25 |
| While passing strangers wonder, if they spy | |
| One single melancholy face go by. | |
| Nor Pyrrhus’ sword nor Cannæ’s fatal field | |
| Such universal desolation yield: | |
| Her impious sons have her worst foes surpassed, | 30 |
| And Roman hands have laid Hesperia waste. | |
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